Night Lights

Schnur's (Spring: An Alphabet Acrostic) soothingly lyrical verses describe a girl's bedtime counting ritual. Beginning with the conch-shaped nightlight she sees in her room ("one seashell on the nursery wall,/ two amber blinking clocks"), the child observes the sources of light as she progresses through the house, then her neighborhood ("thirteen streetlamps light the park"), the city ("fourteen stoplights blink,/ fifteen towers scrape the sky") and the world beyond.